


subdued

by dandyCat (orphan_account)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Insecurity, Light Angst, Unrequited Crush, mild social anxiety, unfulfilling ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28924293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/dandyCat
Summary: Yamaguchi is cute. But do you like him?You're not sure. It's an inane question anyway. It's not like it mattered, after all.
Relationships: Yamaguchi Tadashi/Reader
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	subdued

**Author's Note:**

> This is a slight AU where Haikyuu takes place at Karasuno University (so it's a college) instead of high school, because I wanted to age the characters up. Thanks for reading, I hope you can enjoy.

You didn’t really know or care much for volleyball , you didn’t like watching other people play sports, and yet here you are spectating Karasuno University’s volleyball game. The whole thing had seemed like a drag, but Yachi had gotten invested in the sport after spontaneously becoming Karasuno’s team manager, and had invited you to come along. 

You absently watched the game, two rows back from Yachi so you wouldn’t distract her manager note-taking. At first you had to make an effort to not take your phone out and distract yourself, mainly because you knew if _you_ were playing on that court, you’d feel kinda disappointed to look up and just see people on their phones. So you watched, blankly at first, but as time went on you found yourself caught up in the excitement of the matches.

Number 9 caught your eye. He was attractive in his intensity, and his throws to Number 10 were incredible in their speed. Number 10 was a demon in his own right, as well. 

Before you knew it, the game had ended. It was a loss for Karasuno, but you had enjoyed yourself more than you expected nonetheless.

“What’d you think?” Yachi turned around to face you.

“This was pretty cool actually, thanks for convincing me to come watch,” you answered honestly. “I’d enjoy watching a game again.”

Yachi beamed, glad one of her friends may be willing to give some company at the matches. She then turned her attention back to the team, joining the other manager to offer them water, towels, and discuss where to go from there. 

Admittedly, you did feel a bit awkward about how for 90% of the match, you were left to fend by yourself as Yachi did manager things. Standing alone at what was basically a social outing always felt weird, no matter how many times you went through it. 

You tried not to look as awkward as you felt as you hanged back and waited for Yachi to finish up. What were you supposed to do with your arms!?

A few of the Karasuno players briefly glanced at you, so you took a few steps further back from the whole group to avoid getting any of their attention. 

Finally, Yachi finished up and you spent some time together before the team was ready to go home, until you went your separate ways as she took the team bus back whereas you drove home.

After that, you attended a handful of the volleyball games and began to better appreciate the nuances of the sport. Service aces were probably your favorite thing to see. Number 10’s jump serve was a sight, and the float serve from Karasuno’s pinch server was interesting as well, maybe even moreso because the player that used it was hardly ever on the court.

Also, Aoba Johsai’s _Oikawa?_ Wow.

You began noticing the players from the volleyball team at university more. They never would have even registered in your head before, but now you had seen them enough to notice if you happened to pass a player by in the halls or anything.

Interestingly, the tall blonde with glasses was in your math class, as was the pinch server. You had always noticed them chatting with each other, but only now did you realize they were also the same people you saw on the volleyball team. 

Today in the math class, as you walked to your usual place in the rightmost seat of the first row, you couldn’t help but delay on your way there and try to catch the eye of the two players.

“Uhm, that was a great game you guys played on Saturday,” you spoke out, trying to sound casual. 

The blonde guy gave you an entirely too neutral look—you had kind of expected a smile or something. “Thanks,” he said, then returned to looking at his notes. He was entirely unimpressed.

The dark-haired guy next to him only glanced sideways at his friend’s almost cold response, and you turned to walk toward your seat feeling stupid and regretting saying anything at all; now you just felt very awkward about the whole thing. They couldn’t have cared less, and hadn’t pretended—

“You’re Yachi’s friend, right?” His voice was kinder sounding than you thought, unlike the blonde’s cool monotone. You turned halfway to him, relieved.

“Mhm, I come with her a lot to see Karasuno play.”

“Ah, I thought you looked familiar.” He said. You didn’t know what to say from there, so you smiled genuinely at him (it felt nice to be sort of recognized), and walked to your seat. 

Nothing really happened from there. A month passed by and you never interacted with them again, though now when you went to see their practices, you felt a bit more awkward around them because you had hoped they’d be a little more friendly to you. You really had regretted ever speaking to them in the first place.

Then your professor had announced something terrible.

“Pair up, I’ll let you choose your own partners.”

Your worst nightmare, one you had to relive at least once per year for the past decade: no assigned partners in a class where you have not one acquaintance. Still, you hadn’t expected a _math_ class would be the one to give you this punishment.

The guy to your left quickly partnered with the person behind him, and as you discreetly turned halfway around to see if the girl sitting behind you was also alone, you saw someone else had beat you to it and asked her to pair up.

Everyone pairing up and leaving you isolated? What was this, a re-enaction of your love life? Ha ha. Heh.

Sigh.

It became clear you’d have to travel to another part of the room to find your partner, so you began to put all your notebooks and pens away into your bag. You took a deep breath, and stood up to face the room. 

Everyone looked paired up. You scanned over them all, seeing if anyone stood out as a lone straggler… no one really did. There was probably an odd number of people in the room. This happened way too often. How were they so fast to link up??? 

“Does anyone still need a partner?” you asked the room, hoping your face didn’t look as warm as it felt. This is why you applied BB cream every morning—protection from sun, and some protection from having your face’s quick blush betray your nerves. 

People looked briefly up at you, but no one replied.

You turned to the professor with an embarrassed smile. “I think there’s an odd number of people in this class… I don’t have a partner and everyone else has already paired…” 

“Join a pair and just work as group as three.”

Cool. Now you had to find a pair of randoms and impose yourself on them.

“You can work with us” a clear, masculine voice offered. Your gaze shot up to look at the familiar face you saw at volleyball practices. You had learned his name from Yachi—Yamaguchi. And his friend Tsukishima, who you really had hoped to not interact with again. 

“Oh, thank you,” you replied, except there was no empty seat near them. You dragged your seat over to theirs and began to take your materials back out of your bag, including the paper detailing the assignment instructions.

It looked terrible.

You read over the details of the assignment, and your mind blanked. You couldn’t think of a way to go about doing it.

You were so thrown off by the challenge of the assignment that you had already mentally decided to let these two take the lead. This class was already a struggle for you to begin with, and you felt like you hadn’t really been staying afloat with the material.

For a few seconds, there was contemplative silence. Then the pair began to discuss the best ways to go about solving the problems, and you were _lost._ You didn’t understand a lot of the terms they were throwing around, and you felt your apathy toward this whole thing going up.

Your knowledge and creativity was inadequate compared to their strong ideas, but you didn’t wanna look like a freeloader and not contribute in any way. You desperately racked your mind for suggestions, trying to think of everything you knew about the topic, which was _little_ because you were struggling, and wished you’d known ahead of time about this partner project so you could’ve brushed up on the material more and not embarass yourself like this.

“Is there anything you’d like to add?” Tsukishima asked you. 

“No.. I think your ideas are good… I need to brush up on the material” you admitted, meeting his unreadable face for only a moment before staring at your desk. You pursed your lips. Way to make yourself look lazy.

“Class time is over, so you’re welcome to leave after meeting with your group,” your professor announced, and that was the end of that.

Since there wasn’t really any work necessary outside of class, you didn’t need to exchange contact information. You realized they probably didn't even know your name. Whatever.

Yachi invited you to come to the practice happening that evening, but today you decided to decline. 

* * *

Your insomnia had gotten better at the start of the semester, but last night it had made a return. You had been awake until the sky started to lighten and birds started chirping, then finally fell asleep for _maybe_ two hours. 

Today called for coffee. Today, you were going to treat yourself. 

After getting ready for the day, you headed to the college convenience store and got a seasonal coffee. Then, you hunted down the nearest bench you could find outside, and sat down and just took your time drinking the cinnamon-nutmeggy drink in the chill fall air. Therapy for the soul. 

Today might just be… a good day.

* * *

No, just kidding. Today sucked ass. 

“I can’t tell what’s worse—your mathematical skills, or your verbal comprehension?” Tsukishima had you pinned with his icy look, an aloof eyebrow raised.

You tried to keep your temper under wraps. It wouldn’t help things here.

And you obviously were not going to respond to that statement. He wasn’t wrong, you had evidently failed at both, but he didn’t have to be an asshole about it… You certainly wouldn’t speak to someone that way. You wouldn’t have the guts to even consider it. 

Yamaguchi snickered behind the hand covering his mouth.

“Don’t be mean, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi chided, though he sounded playful more than anything, as if it were just amusing to him. You had made been mistaken when you thought him kind.

“I’ll stay after class to fix it,” was all you said. 

Students began filing out, and you were counting down the seconds until these two would leave too. You didn’t really like either of them, you just wanted to finish this up alone now and they probably wouldn’t wanna work with you again on anything. 

Except, they hadn’t left yet and everyone else had gone.

“You can leave, I’ll take care of it,” you insisted, really just wishing they’d leave you alone.

“Nah, it’d take forever if we didn’t help out.” Yamagachi said.

At the same time, Tsukishima said “See you later then”, pulled his headphones on, and walked off. 

“Oh, bye Tsukki!” Yamagachi called after him, smiling at the guy. You really couldn’t get a read on Yamagachi. Tsukishima was obvious; he was callous and direct. Yamagachi though, he almost seemed nice but he never failed to laugh whenever Tsukishima was cruel to anyone. You noticed it on the court as well. 

Whatever though, the end of this project would probably mark the end of your time interacting with them.

You began to restart all the problems you’d messed up on, having initially misunderstood what the two had instructed you to do.You had embarassed yourself, and even though your pride had wanted you to not just stand there and take it when Tsukishima railed at you, you couldn’t fault him either.

You worked in silence, not trying to make conversation with Yamaguchi or even really look in his direction. 

“So you like volleyball, huh?” he asked, clearly not catching onto your emo vibes. 

“I guess… I didn’t really know anything about it until Yachi invited me to see your games, and then I got pulled in.” You kept your eyes on your work, your voice tired. You didn’t want to be their friend.

“Ahh, I understand. I didn’t care much for volleyball either, until I started playing.” 

“When was that?” you asked, only to keep the conversation going.

“The beginning of middle school. Tsukki was there with me.” he said, and you understood his loyalty to Tsukishima a little more. They had been friends for a long time. 

Maybe ten minutes into your work, the door opened.

“Hey, I’m sorry, can I ask you two to go elsewhere? Another class is starting here,” said whom you presumed was a professor.

“Ohh, sure, sorry!” you responded, immediately packing up your things. Yamaguchi apologized and packed up as well, and the two of you left the room.

“We can finish up in my dorm, it’s in the building next door,” said Yamaguchi.

His _dorm?_ Oooh… you were a part of the small percentage of students that commuted to the college rather than dorming, since you really didn’t want to take out the loans you’d need to afford it. Plus, your parents didn’t approve of dorming. Though you’d initially wanted to, you found you couldn’t justify the idea enough to make yourself broke for it, since for someone like you, who’d probably just shut themselves into their dorm and only come out for classes, maybe dorming wouldn’t have been so beneficial anyway. You didn’t really have any friends outside Yachi, and you didn’t even hang out with her much besides volleyball meets, so it wasn’t often you stepped inside a residence hall.

For such a small thing as going to Yamaguchi’s dorm, you found yourself both excited and apprehensive. 

You followed quietly behind him, and when he held the door open for you as you stepped into his residence hall, you hoped you hadn’t turned as warm as you felt. How silly you were. You held eye contact for only a moment as you mumbled out a thanks. His dark eyes were far too warm, for someone who would laugh at you so casually.

You just needed to finish up the math problem, and leave, and never speak to these two again. You didn’t like them. They made you feel entirely inadequate, they made you feel horrible, you’d cried when you got home that day that Tsukishima had said those unnecessary things. It was the first partner project you’d had for a class that actually related to your major, and you had already felt that if this is the way things were going to go, you wouldn’t _last_ in your major. You were too dumb, too lazy for it, and if people like those two were who you’d have to deal with, then graduating would be even more of a challenge then you’d expected. Yes, Yamaguchi had a handsome face, and a sweet sounding voice, but he was not your friend, and he was not really a nice person.

“Here we are,” he said, opening the door to his room. You noticed the names _Tadashi Yamaguchi_ and _Kei Tsukishima_ labeled on the door. Great. Of course they were roommates. Please let Tsukishima not be there.

But thankfully, as your eyes took in the humble dorm, no Tsukishima was present. The room was clean and well-kept, and if nothing else, you could at least appreciate _that_ about the pair.

There were two desks on opposite sides of the room, presumably one for each boy. You had only a moment to wonder how you’d comfortably discuss the answers while sitting on opposite sides of the room, before Yamaguchi casually began lifting up one of the wooden desks and bringing it over to the other side.

Something about seeing his lanky frame move the bulky object with such ease warmed you up in ways you didn’t really need to be warmed up right now.Thanks, libido.

The two of you got settled in your desks, resuming your relatively quiet work on the problem. Finally, after about an hour, you were done!!

“Thank you so much for helping me, I really appreciate it,” you told him candidly as you began packing up your things. You knew you’d have taken quite a while had you worked on it alone. Plus, you felt surprisingly calm working here beside him. At first you had balked a bit at his insistence on staying with you to help, since you felt uncomfortable with pushing extra work on him for something that was your fault. Also, the idea of alone time with him had your hackles rising. But he hadn’t acted in any way that made you uncomfortable.

He grinned, and you… you were not mentally prepared for the sight. His boyish face had lit up, his dark brown eyes so warm.

“Of course! Are you coming to our practice today?” he asked.

“Yeah”.

“We can walk there together, then! It’s starting in twenty minutes,” he said. You really had finished your work up just in time, then. And now you got to walk all the way to the gym with a cute boy. Nice. Except, you didn’t really feel any type of way at all about it. Maybe some time ago, you would have had some useless butterflies flitting about in your belly, because yes this was not romantic in the slightest, you were walking to the gym with your math partner, but you had no experience with anything vaguely romantic whatsoever and here you were with the first cute boy you’d interacted with for more than five seconds since like high school. Yet, if there was any excited feeling bubbling up inside you right now, it was too distant to be felt.

Mostly, you just felt weary.

The two of you made small talk. You told him your major, he told you yours. You told him your year in college, he told you his. It was blatantly empty, and you found yourself still unaffected by the whole thing when you finally reached the gym. You were a boring person, and that was hard to mask.

“Have fun practicing,” you said to him.

“Thanks!” And there was that breathtaking grin again. You were far too weak. “And thank you for supporting us. See you around!”

“Of course! Bye!”

He was really cute. He was so _pleasant_ and yet, hadn’t you thought yourself a fool before when you had assumed he was kind, and then he had laughed at you? It had been then that you’d realized he was just the type of boy to go along with anything, whether it’s a good thing or bad thing. But now, again, you found yourself confused at whether you’d misjudged him.

Whatever. It didn’t really matter now, did it? Nothing was going to become of this. You were not going to become friends, let alone anything more. You were weird for even thinking about him in that sort of way, you were just math partners. Lots of people probably liked him and wanted to date him, people far better and more attractive than _you._

Anyway, this was the end of it all. The project was done. You made your way to the bleachers, pulling out your laptop and doing some schoolwork as you waited for Yachi to join you.

You didn’t miss when Tsukishima’s blonde head entered and for a brief moment, turned in your direction. He was wearing his usual flat expression. You didn’t look directly at his face at all, only noticing from your peripheral. He probably thought of you as the dumb, annoying girl from math. You hoped he never talked about you to the other boys on the team. No doubt, he’d have nothing nice to say.

Practice started, and when the boys no longer practiced their receives and thus didn’t need Yachi throwing balls at them, she joined you on the bench. Her eyes stayed rapt on the team, taking notes now and then. You continued working on your homework, not wanting to distract Yachi with any useless chatter.

There wasn’t really a point to you coming, anymore. As the minutes went on, you felt increasingly stifled in here. How had you ever thought this fun?

Occasionally, Yachi talked to you for a bit, but all of your responses came out stilted. You were uncomfortable. Was the gym always so stuffy?

“Um, Yachi, I’m sorry, I’m going to go.” Her eyes flicked to you, concerned. “I’m not feeling well.”

“Oh… are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“I’m starting to get a headache,” you lied. You didn’t know how to explain this feeling. It wasn’t a super uncommon one, but you didn’t know how to explain it. “And I’m pretty tired. Sorry, see you later though.” You packed up your things as you spoke, and then quickly exited the gym.

The cool air greeted you as you broke through the doors, and you appreciated the dark skies immensely. This was what you needed. The balm of a dark, quiet evening, alone. And you _hated_ that you needed this. Why couldn’t you just be normal?

You found yourself racing to your parked car. You stumbled into it, starting it and taking off, and yet, the closer you got to home, the slower you drove. What was waiting for you there, anyway? You wanted to stay where you were. Limbo.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the end of this fiction. Hopefully it will resonate in some way, with a few readers? Genuinely sorry if this just straight up sucked for you and left you feeling like you wasted your time!
> 
> I wanted to write a cute fanfic with Yamaguchi and Reader, and somehow I created THIS and was unable to actually develop a relationship between Reader and Yamaguchi. I don't think the type of character portrayed by this Reader, who is controlled by their insecurities, can have a relationship—even so, I really wanted to write from the POV of such a Reader with Yamaguchi, and this was all I could come up with. :) 
> 
> Thanks very much for reading. Any and all comments are SERIOUSLY APPRECIATED (even though this fic has been forsaken to orphan_account, I will still revisit it to check on comments, if there are any).


End file.
